Is there a "Hassle-Free" Way of Deleting "Protected" Files/Folders

[louno]

Ok, this is driving me crazy... I got a new computer with a new hard drive, installed windows 7 and all my apps. I wanted to use my old Hard drive as data/storage drive on my new computer so i just unplugged my drive from old computer and plug it in new computer.

Now... the thing is, there are a bunch of thing on the older hard drive that i would like to DELETE. This older hard drive had a windows installation on it and because of that, a lot of folders are "protected" ( folders such has, windows, program files, and everything within them ) ... The only way i am able to delete files is to manually go into the file/folder property, then assign myself as the new owner, then go into permissions and enable all permissions to myself.

This works... but only for individual file or folders that dont have files/folder within them that require permissions... this means that to delete the entire "windows" folder it would take me FOR EVER as there are hundreds of files/folders...

I know that when you change the owner of a folder/file , there is an option called "replace owner on subcontainers and objects" but that doesnt help because although the ownership is changed, i still need to go and manually change the permissions folder by folder, sub-folder by sub-folder , sub-sub-subfolder by sub-sub-subfolder ( and it goes on pretty deep ) of eeeeverything to be able to delete them...

I just want to delete files god damn it... why so difficult ?

 

[louno]

..... am i doomed to keep all that useless data ?

 

[Zoron]

Format the drive... problem solved.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

^As long as you don't need anything off of said HDD, then Zoron's got your best option.

 

[ram1009]

Worst case scenario, move any files you want to keep from the old to the new HDD or copy them to an external HDD or put them on disk and then format the old HDD. Move the files back later if you like.